


Commander in Absentia

by Brightbear



Series: The Challenge of Rattrap [1]
Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brightbear/pseuds/Brightbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rattrap knows about tactics and how to survive. Sometimes it's not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Commander in Absentia

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of a challenge. Prompt: Not Enough  
> Set in Season 1 episode, 'Chain of Command'

Rattrap doesn't like being stranded on an uninhabited planet. He doesn't like the fact that their best protection is a half-slagged spacecraft. He doesn't like Optimus' insufferable and persistent optimism. The boss-man is entirely too willing to risk his own circuitry and he expects the other Maximals to follow his lead. It's not until their fearless leader is held captive by an alien probe that Rattrap realises that he also doesn't like Optimus' job.

He thinks he does decently enough, in that none of the crew get scrapped under his watch. The Axalon and it's shield survives, more or less intact. Rattrap's been around too long to screw up in combat. Given more experience and a team of bots he knows, he thinks he'd make a decent enough leader on the battlefield. He knows about tactics and how to survive.

It's only after the battle that he realises exactly how far out of his depth he is. Dinobot defers to Rattrap, praising his selfless actions. Any other time Rattrap would be chuckling and bowing as he took his long-awaited due from the ex-Predacon. Not now, because Dinobot also laments that he was not similarly selfless. Dinobot considers himself dishonoured and honestly ashamed and Rattrap can't laugh. Rattrap can't make a jibe or take it less than seriously because Dinobot wasn't admitting defeat to Rattrap. He was confessing his failings to his Commander and that's the one thing Rattrap doesn't know how to be.

The End


End file.
